here in the uk we have a national health service (the NHS). Everything is already paid for through taxes so there is no payment at the point of use. this includes the local GP service, hospitals, ambulance service, dental service (for people on low income), all other ancillary services such as physiotherapy, dieticians, dermatology, free medicine (for people on low income), etc etc. all this would be very expensive and unaffordable for most people in the UK if we had to pay out of our own pocket.
how do people in countries without a national health service cope? especially when they require major health services such as operations, long term care, terminal illness care etc?
It is not all bad here in Pakistan,some aspects of health care are even better,it is a fact that things are more disorganised here as compared to UK,but fascilities are available and comparatively cheaper than UK,investigations are done more quickly and treatment given immediately....
If my memory serves me right,when I was in West Midlands,it would take weeks to get a simple abdominal ultrasound done,and CT/MRI would take even longer.When a GP had to refer a patient for specialist consultation,by the time he was seen by the specialist the patient would have usually improved or worsened, and resources were consumed mostly by formalities like Paper work,referrals etc,the situation may have improved now...
Here,in Pakistan,one can get all the investigations done in one day,from simple blood count to MRI by spending a small amount of money compared to UK,say an Abdominal ultrasound will cost some 800 Pakistani rupees and an MRI of Brain around 4000 Rupees,and that is when done privately,in hospitals such investigations may even cost less...
There are government run hospital in villages called “Basic health units” ( bigger villages gets a little more advanced small hospital called RURAL HEALTH CENTRES,then we have TEHSIL HEADQUARTER HOSPITALS ( for one small city and surrounding villages) and then DISTRICT HEADQUARTER HOSPITAL for the whole district,both THQ HOSPITALS and DHQ HOSPITALS you may find specialist doctors,X-Ray machine,ECG,Ultrasound machine,and in some districts even CT machine; There is usually a specialist physician,surgeon,gynaecologist,paediatrician and Eye/ENT surgeons available,then there are many good teaching hospitals available in provincial capitals.
Medical colleges are multiple in each province (both government run and private) and our graduates prove well trained when they work in UK and USA ( and gulf countries)...
Our issues are different brother,disorganisation,massive corruption,political interference,population etc. If those things are sorted out,we have a well placed infrastructure for almost every field of life.
Treatment fascilities are supposed to be on nominal charges in government run hospitals,which almost everyone can afford.The PTI government in KP started “Health card system” for the poor,where the poor could utilise up to 400,000 rupees on his health annually (paid by the government),irrespective of him being treated privately or in government run hospitals,it included cost of ‘everything’...from hospital admissions to investigations to treatment (including surgery)...the system worked well.
As I said,if the functioning of the government improves,it is easy to transform the whole society.At the moment we can’t compare ourself to UK or Scandinavia in providing free health care for all,our population is more than 200 million Sir....
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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